McCain Bio-sketch

John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936 at Coco Solo Navel Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama. His parents names were John S. McCain Jr. and Roberta Wright McCain. John McCain has Scots-Irish, Anglo-Irish, and English ancestry. He has a older sister Sandy and a younger brother named Joe who his father to various Naval postings in the United States and the Pacific. He graduated from the U.S Naval Academy in 1958. Then he became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. After retiring from the navy as captain in 1981, he then moved to Arizona and entered politics. When John McCain formally announced his intention to run for President of the United States on April 25, 2007 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he stated that: “I’m not running for president to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things, not the easy and needless things.” Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was revealed as McCain’s surprise choice for running mate on August 29, 2008. He was only the second presidential nominee to select a woman for running mate and the first republican to do so.

John McCain holds the position of having a strong support for the Iraq War, calling for decisive actions for victory, and strongly supporting the surge. He also supports lowering federal spending and lowering taxes, though he voted against the Bush tax cuts. He will commit our country to expanding domestic oil and natural gas exploration. John McCain believes it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and work with states to put our own reserves to use. We have trillions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy. This is the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. He proposes to cooperate with the states and the Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources. He will put our country on track to construct 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the ultimate goal of eventually constructing 100 new plants. It is also critical that the U.S. be able to build the components for these plants and reactors within our country so that we are not dependent on foreign suppliers with long wait times to move forward with our nuclear plans.

Palin Bio-Sketch

Sarah Palin was born February 11,1964 and is the governor of Alaska. She is the Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate for the 2008 United States presidential election with senator John McCain. She was the second woman, and the first Alaskan, to run on the national ticket of either major party. Governor Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho and she is the third of four children. When Sarah was very little, not even able to walk, her family and her moved to Alaska. As a child, she sometimes went moose hunting with her father before school. Palin attended Wasilla High School in Wasilla, which was located 44 miles north or the Anchorage. She was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at the school and the point guard and captain of the school's girls' basketball team that won the Alaska state championship in 1982. Then in 1982, she enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College but left after her first semester. She transferred to North Idaho community college, where she spent two semesters as a general studies major. Sarah Palin was in a lot of beauty pageants. She won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished third in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant, at which she won a collage scholarship and the “Miss Congeniality” award. Afterwards, Palin attended the Matanuska-Susitna community college in Alaska for one term. The next year she returned to the University of Idaho where she spent three semesters completing her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.

On August 29, 2008, in Dayton Ohio, Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate. Palin has promoted oil and natural gas resource exploration in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She brought suit to overturn the listing of polar bears under the federal Endangered Species Act, and also opposed strengthening protections for beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. On global warming, Palin said that "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made." She later said that "Man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue" and that "John McCain and I agree that we got to do something about it. "Regarding foreign policy, Palin supports the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, but is concerned that "dependence on foreign energy" may be obstructing efforts to "have an exit plan in place". Palin supports preemptive military action in the face of an imminent threat, and supports U.S. military operations in Pakistan. She declined to give a yes or no answer regarding whether U.S. military forces should make cross-border attacks into Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government.

Obama Bio-sketch

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii of August of 1961. His fathers from Kenya peand his mother was from Kansas. He was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. In 1958 Barrack graduated from the Naval Academy. He also fought in Vietnam and was awarded many metals. He took out loans to put himself through school. During his years of learning he went to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991. He then returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. His work led him to run for Illinois state senate. He ran as senate for 8 years and then he was first elected to office on November 2, 1982. Democrats chose Barrack Obama as the first ever African-American Presidential Nominee for a political party on August 27, 2008.

Obama believes in a 21st century economic plan to help make sure that America can complete in global economy and make sure the middle class is thriving and increasing. He will expand investments in infrastructure, energy independence, education, and research and development. As Obama being a democratic he believes in pro-choice. He supports legislation to expand access to contraception, health information, and preventative services to help reduce pregnancies that weren’t intended to happen. That is why he co-sponsored the Prevention First Act of 2007, which will bring up funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. Obama supports charter schools but he’s skeptical of private schools. He believes that personally, marriage is between man and woman. But equality is a moral imperative for gays and lesbians. He says there shouldn’t be any discrimination against people who choose to be different in any way.

Biden Bio-Sketch

Joe Biden was born on November 20, 1942 and he is the Vice President-elect of the United States and the senior United States Senator from Delaware. Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and lived there for ten years before moving to Delaware. He is the son of Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. and Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan. He was the first of four siblings in an Irish Catholic family. He has two brothers, James Brian Biden and Francis W. Biden, and a sister, Valerie Owens. One of his grandfathers was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate. Biden went to the Archmere Academy in Claymont, where he was a standout halfback/wide receiver on the high school football team. Biden then soon graduated in 1961. He attended the University of Delaware in Newark, he also played football there as well. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in history and political science in 1965, he ranked 506th of 688 in his class. On August 27, 1966, Biden then became a law student, married Neilia Hunter, who was from an affluent background in New York and had attended Syracuse University. They had three children, Joseph R. Biden III , Robert Hunter , and Naomi Christina.


On August 22, 2008 Barack Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. Biden nevertheless focused on campaigning in economically-challenged areas of swing states and trying to win over all Democrats, especially those who had supported Hillary Rodham Clinton. Biden attacked McCain heavily, despite a long-standing personal friendship. Biden is against the Bush administration's tax cuts and would take back one year of the tax cuts for Americans who make over a million dollars a year. He believes action must be taken on global warming and he supports the creation of a new treaty on climate change that would require emissions reductions from developing countries such as Brazil, India, China, and Mexico. He has also stated his support for investment in technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the creation of a "cap and trade" system. Biden opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources as well as upping funding for alternative transportation like Amtrak and mass transit.

n.p "cartoon." StarNews. 7 Sept. 2008:6A

Kurtzman, Daniel. "McCain Beauty Queen." About. com:Political Humor. 8 Sept. 2008<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/sarahpalin/ig/Sarah-Palin-Cartoons/McCain-Beauty-Queen.-UiV.htm>

Peters, Mike. "I said "change" 10 times today. I said "change" 20 times today. Mc. I said "change" 300 times today. Unemployment. " StarNews. 15 Sept. 2008: 6A